Articles

Bad contracts, the poisons that contaminated the NBA, were largely responsible for the lockout. They became emblems for David Stern’s “broken system” rhetoric. But there’s no way these contracts would exist without the fans asking for them.

The last decade has seen an explosion of gay sports bars in America's large cities: Crew in Chicago, Gym Bar and Boxers in New York, Woofs in Atlanta, Sidelines in Ft. Lauderdale, and more. These bars are a coming out party for a long-standing subculture of out fans—and athletes—that have been trapped between competing stereotypes for decades. And on the business front, their success is undeniable.

Jose Reyes got a contract offer from the Miami Marlins that the New York Mets couldn't match, and so he left. It's not all that complicated. How the the Mets organization became the zombie-patrolled ruin it is today, on the other hand...

Justice was served, but it was no mere formality. Both of these guys swear that the rematch between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito was up there for the most profound sports experiences of their lives. Magic stills happen in Madison Square Garden, and it doesn't have to be nice.

Nils Wagner's by-the-bootstraps company, HoopMixTape, helped launch the public awareness of future young NBA players like John Wall, Derrick Rose, and Brandon Jennings. His videos have been viewed online more than 120 million times, and he has more than 125,000 YouTube subscribers. In the landscape of sports programming, where high school athletics are the next frontier—and, indeed, become more commercialized by the year—Nils Wagner and his competitors’ dramatic hype and frequent dunk-and-crossover mash-ups provide what networks often don’t.

Reaction to the end of the NBA lockout has been couched in the either/or terms of fan elation (or revulsion). Did the lockout do irrevocable damage to the league's brand and bruise up David Stern's legacy? Or, was this abrupt resolution, at nearly the exact point where yearning curdles into resentment, was perfectly timed to cash in on pent-up enthusiasm? The more realistic response, is one of ambivalence.

This year’s SEC Championship game will not involve the two best teams in the SEC, arguably the two best in the nation. This may seem counterintuitive, but logic is something that is frequently overlooked in the world of college football.

I was shocked when Antonio Margarito was caught attempting to place plaster inserts into his hand wraps before his 2009 welterweight title fight with Shane Mosley. No matter what the cranks tell you, things like that don’t happen at the highest levels of the sport. I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised that the exception was Antonio Margarito.

In the middle of the ring, Eddie Kingston is crying, like full-body-heave sobbing. The blonde woman hugging him is crying, too. Kingston has just become the first-ever Grand Champion of Chikara Pro Wrestling, a Philly-based indie company that bravely and quixotically went for nearly a decade without naming a central champion.

Even if one wants to feel a genial non-interfering positivity or salutary indifference toward Tim Tebow and his “testimony,” the frequency and intensity with which it’s invoked by NFL Network and ESPN makes it intolerable. By week 14, Skip Bayless will be berating some poor Archbishop about their “beatification bias.”